Are you a free spirit? Find out.

On the back cover of The Gay Science, Nietzsche specified the goal of all his books: "to erect a new image...of the free spirit." Who can be called a free spirit? What qualities does a free spirit possess? Let's answer the question by looking at who's not a free spirit👇

A sign of weakness: "how much one needs a faith." Faith is "needed most urgently" where the will to act is missing. The free spirits, on the other hand, are willing to ground the justification for their actions in their own self - as opposed to an external faith.

People betray their weakness when they reveal their faith in God, country, or even science. This spiritual need for something solid to stand on "discharges itself among large numbers of people" today through the faith in science. We used to swear on God, now we swear on experts.

A faith in one's own country - in its unique specialness and goodness - is also a "symptom" of weakness.

A person who has lost direction and the will to act seeks someone or something that "commands severely - a god, prince, class, physician, father confessor, dogma, or party conscience." People who don't know what to do become "utterly desperate for some thou shalt."

The free spirit, in contrast, rejoices when he hears about the news of God's death. Nietzsche writes: "At long last the horizon appears free to us again, even if it should not be bright; at long last our ships may venture out again, venture out to face any danger."

Nietzsche brings up Napoleon as the quintessential free spirit, who said: "I have the right to answer all accusations against me with an eternal That's me. I am apart from all the world and accept conditions from nobody. I demand subjection even to my fancies."

A superstitious person is a "second order free spirit." Compared to a religious human, the superstitious man is "much more of a person." He surveys a buffet of "forms and formulas"; he chooses and discards freely. In a superstitious age there is "much delight in individuality."

The free spirits experience great pleasure in "self-determination." They bid farewell to all faiths and don't even "wish for certainty." They can hang on by "insubstantial ropes and possibilities" - they have a taste for dancing "near abysses."

Bottom line. The free spirits have a much greater risk tolerance than the average person. They tend to drown their anchors and set off into the open sea. A free spirit leaves behind the certainty and comfort of faith to seek new adventures and new dangers in the unknown.